


All The Things We'd Held In Secret

by Moorishflower



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-20
Updated: 2010-07-20
Packaged: 2017-10-10 16:55:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/101981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moorishflower/pseuds/Moorishflower
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gabriel has trouble with relationships. Specifically, the one he apparently now wants to have with Sam. Sequel to Mouth Ever Fresh With Praise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All The Things We'd Held In Secret

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jessebee](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Jessebee).



  
_Don't look up,_ Gabriel thinks. _Don't look up, because Sam is sitting right there and you're going to get distracted from making your rubber band ball, and right now the rubber band ball is the only thing you should be focusing on. The only thing. So don't you fucking dare look up._

Gabriel has been thinking like this for the past three weeks. This is because it has been approximately three weeks (and two days, four hours, and twenty five minutes) since he made the monumental mistake of having sex with Sam Winchester.

It should be said that he doesn't mean 'mistake' in the usual way – neither he nor Sam are pregnant, he's pretty sure Sam enjoyed himself (at least as much as Gabriel, anyways), and there isn't any awkward tension between them…

Correction: there isn't any awkward tension _on Sam's part_. And therein lies the mistake. Because Gabriel has never felt on edge over sex before, so this whole situation is new and completely surreal for him.

All because Sam is too fucking _precious_ for his own good. Because he's got a huge cock and a firm ass and, _on top of that_, he's intelligent, and he laughs at Gabriel's jokes. And, all right, he has a history of making unfortunate life choices, but hey, no one's perfect. All in all, Sam Winchester is a catch. Anyone who isn't afraid of the hunter lifestyle (or that unfortunate demon blood business) would readily admit to it.

It's just that Gabriel isn't the _settling_ type. Gabriel has spent thousands of years trolling around this beautiful, miserable little blue-green mud sphere, and in all that time he has never once felt the urge to settle down. Well, the things with Angrboda and Sigyn totally never counted – he wasn't _really_ married to them, it just sort of came with the whole 'impersonating Loki' thing.

But the point being: Gabriel likes his freedom. He likes being able to sleep with whoever he wants, whenever he wants, and he's gone out of his way, in the past, to insure that that doesn't change.

Except obviously he must have taken a mental wrong turn somewhere, because for the past three weeks he hasn't felt like having sex with _anybody_…except for Sam. Sam with his painfully earnest eyes and his floppy hair and the sharp jut of his hipbones…Sam with his skin scrubbed and flushed pink from the shower, Sam leaning over his computer and tapping at his keyboard, Sam's mouth pursed in disbelief or upset, Sam, Sam, _Sam_.

"Gabriel?"

Gabriel slowly raises his head, willing his expression into careful neutrality. Sam is staring at him like he might be some sort of escaped mental patient. His Father knows he's beginning to _feel_ like one.

"What?" he grits out, and Sam's eyebrows lift.

"I thought I heard you say my name," Sam says cautiously. _Fuck_. "I guess it must have been the wind, though."

Gabriel can tell by the set of Sam's mouth that he knows perfectly well it wasn't the wind, but Gabriel doesn't point that out. He gingerly picks himself up off of Dean's bed (making himself at home with Dean's things is one of the few perks of siding with Team Winchester or Team Free Will or whatever the fuck they're calling it now) and stands, rolling his shoulders.

"Well, it's been fun watching you do absolutely nothing, but there's a casino out there with my name on it. Talk to ya later, Sammy."

Gabriel doesn't wait for Sam's expression to morph into disappointment (as it always, _always_ does). He just snaps his fingers and _goes_.

~

Things don't get any better.

Issue number one is that Dean Winchester is a massive, _hypocritical_ tool. It's obvious that no one has told him about Gabriel and Sam's little one-night dalliance, but it's equally as obvious that he _suspects_. Gabriel isn't surprised, to be honest – sometimes the tension between Sam and him is so thick you could cut it with a knife. And the worst part? All that tension is coming from _him_, because he has absolutely no idea what to do with himself now that he only wants to have sex with _one_ person…at least, for the foreseeable future.

But yes, Dean is an issue. Because Dean likes to walk into the motel room of the week at extremely inopportune moments, pretty obviously looking to cockblock his younger brother, and, while he never succeeds (because they're never _doing_ anything), it gets annoying all the same. Even _Sam_ starts complaining about it ("Dean, _please_ stop slamming the door open like that, you're making things fall off the table."), and Sam, for all that Gabriel knows, is pretty oblivious to the whole issue of 'Gabriel wants to spend extensive quality time with Sam's genitals.'

Issue number two is Castiel.

Gabriel loves his brother, he really does. He loves Castiel just as much as he loved Michael (_still_ loves, if he feels like being honest), and Castiel, as far as the Host goes, is pretty easy to get along with. He's not terribly judgmental (considering the epic boner he's sporting for Dean, Gabriel doesn't think Castiel is _capable_ judging other people at this point), he doesn't go on and on about the how Gabriel's being a filthy, blasphemous sinner, and he takes well to instruction. Gabriel is able to teach him how to play poker in a single day, and Castiel does so well at it that Dean takes him to a bar the next night and they bring back no less than three-hundred dollars in cold, hard cash. To celebrate, Dean had bought Castiel a pizza that was half meat lovers, half vegetarian, and watching the two of them eat it had been like watching that scene in Lady and the Tramp: kind of adorable and sickening at the same time. Sam had obviously agreed, because he'd felt the need to leave the room entirely and go look at YouTube videos in the Impala.

And then issue number three, of course, is Sam. Who quite possibly has no idea what's going on, and he doesn't seem to be inclined towards doing anything about it.

So, yeah, issues. Gabriel has them, and he has no idea how to resolve them.

Hoo-ray for him.

~

At some point, Castiel makes an incredibly ballsy move in his awkward, half-reciprocated courtship with Dean Winchester.

He hugs the guy.

Probably because Gabriel had been trying to explain methods of expressing affection (he had left out 'blowjobs' and 'fucking,' mostly because he doesn't think Castiel is ready for that sort of thing), but apparently full-body hugs are fair game, because Dean spends the next four days staying in a separate room while Castiel stares forlornly at the bed that Gabriel has taken over.

Sam is amused. Gabriel knew there was a reason why he started liking the guy.

Fuck. _Liking_ the guy. Fuck, fuck, _fuck_.

"You should just tell him how you feel," Sam says, trying to coax Castiel into venturing across the hall to Dean's room. "Dean appreciates honesty. I think he's just confused right now. He isn't sure what you want."

"_I_ am not certain what I want," Castiel says mournfully. Which is just…awesome. A sexually confused angel, a sexually frustrated archangel, and one earnestly helpful human later, and here they are.

Gabriel helpfully reaches across the bed and hands Castiel an issue of Cosmopolitan. Sam immediately takes it away from the angel's stiff and uninterested grasp.

"That's not going to help any," Sam says, magazine clenched in one hand as he gently steers Castiel towards the door. "What you need to do is talk it out with _Dean_, not with me. And whatever you do, don't listen to Gabriel."

"Hey!"

"Gabriel has been of help," Castiel says, ever quick to jump to the defense of his brothers. "He has taught me the difference between 'good' social interaction and 'bad' social interaction. There were diagrams. It was very enlightening. I have learned that humans find it off-putting when I forget to blink."

Sam stares at Gabriel, who raises one shoulder in a '_Hey, I can be a decent guy sometimes_' sort of gesture. Sam herds Castiel out into the hallway, the door swinging shut behind them – Gabriel can hear them, if he really wants to, but he's suddenly struck with the realization that, with both Dean and Castiel gone, he's going to be alone in the motel room.

With Sam.

"Shit," he says, and that's the moment that Sam chooses to re-enter the room, closing the door firmly behind him. It _clicks_ with an awful (possibly _wonderful_) sort of finality.

"What?" Sam asks. "Something wrong?" Gabriel's quick to wave the question away.

"Nah, just…thinking about Castiel. He's screwed."

"I think he'll be okay," Sam says; there's worry in the curve of his mouth. "I mean, Dean's kind of dense, but I don't think…"

"No," Gabriel says slowly, "I mean _literally_. I hope you have earplugs." He's guessing, of course, but Sam doesn't know that…and Gabriel is usually pretty good at guessing. He's willing to bet that their respective brothers will be getting to know each other _Biblically_ by the time evening rolls around.

Sam's cheeks color, and he immediately heads for his laptop. Gabriel cranes his neck to see – he's browsing that awful fucking journal site again. Gabriel's all for strangers writing porn about _him_ on the Internet, but he's come to realize that, with Sam? Not so much. A bunch of horny women writing page after page about Sam Winchester's rippling pectorals only makes him feel, somewhat vaguely, like smiting something.

Shit. He wonders if that's _jealousy_.

"Please tell me you aren't reading porn about us," Gabriel groans. Not that he's opposed to the idea, but something about Sam _reading_ about it, but not _doing_ it, makes him uncomfortable. Does he bring Sam flowers and serenade him beneath the romantic light of the full moon? Does he take Sam on exotic cruises, or teleport them to secret, beautiful places hidden from the modern world?

Is fictional him _a better lay_? The possibilities are mind-boggling, and Gabriel has no way of telling (save for invading the sanctity of Sam's thoughts) whether any of them are the actual issue.

"It isn't porn," Sam says, after a long moment that Gabriel determines might qualify as 'uncomfortable.' "It's just…a lot of these people think we have things in common."

"We sort of do," Gabriel points out. "You left your family because you were sick of the fighting…I left _my_ family for the same reason…You have a nice ass, _I_ have a nice ass…We're practically the same person, as far as those books are concerned."

He thinks he catches a glimpse of a smile, out of the corner of his eye – good to know that complimenting Sam's ass will get him places in life. Gabriel raises an eyebrow in return, going for 'come hither' but probably only hitting 'smugly desirous,' which, he has discovered, is a turn-off for some people…

But not for Sam.

"Does it bother you?" Gabriel tilts his head. "Me reading about us, I mean."

"Knock yourself out," Gabriel offers. "I mean, as far as bedmates go, fictional you has landed one with a thousand different ways to get you off, no refractory period, and no concept of 'too kinky.' I'm not about to deny him that."

"And what about real me?"

Gabriel performs a maneuver that, in certain circles, is better known as a 'double-take.' He stares at Sam for a good thirty seconds before making a vaguely inquiring sound, and Sam stares back at him, level and calm. Gabriel's never realized how many _layers_ this kid is hiding – he's like a pond: still on the surface, but with whole ecosystems hiding underneath. Gabriel's surprised by how…intriguing that is. How beautiful. Humans are such complex and wonderful creatures.

But he still likes Sam the best.

"I mean…" Sam hesitates, and then forges on. "Do you regret it? What we did?"

"You might need to be a little more specific," Gabriel says, because maybe Sam is talking about that time a few days ago when Sam helped him fill all of Dean's shoes with caramel. Surely he can't be talking about…

"The sex," Sam says, blunt as a golf club, and Gabriel can't help it – he sort of…flinches. Not because he _does_ regret it, but because he's been mulling it over for weeks, now, and having it shoved out into the open like that is startling.

Humans, unfortunately, tend to assume that 'flinching' is in response to things that are unpleasant, not just abrupt. Sam's expression crumples like a piece of paper, and he starts to turn back around, to face his laptop again.

Gabriel is up and off the bed before he even knows what he's doing, immediately curling an arm around Sam's shoulders, draping himself over the guy like a stole made out of archangel.

"Don't," he says softly, exhaling warmth against the long expanse of Sam's neck. Sam's breath hitches in response, and Gabriel congratulates himself. "Don't do that."

"You don't want me to bring it up."

"I don't _care_ if you bring it up," Gabriel corrects. "I care about what you're thinking. How your screwed up little brain is trying to parse it out."

"Thanks," Sam says dryly. "It's just…It's been five _weeks_, Gabriel."

"Four weeks and five days."

Sam rolls his eyes. "I don't know how it works with angels…"

"Still? You'd think the first demonstration would be enough."

Sam forges on, ignoring Gabriel's attempt at humor. "…But for humans, five weeks is a pretty long time to go without talking about _us having sex_."

"I haven't been reading your mind," Gabriel says softly. "I didn't know you _wanted_ to talk about it. Trust me when I say that this hasn't been a picnic for me, either."

Sam cocks his head at exactly the same angle as Castiel when he's confused about television, or deep-fried candy bars, or figure skating. "Meaning?" he asks pointedly, and Gabriel realizes that he's backed himself into a corner. A corner that his non-settling, carefree-lifestyled ass can't get out of again.

He isn't sure he _wants_ to, but it's still somewhat painful when he glances down in the general vicinity of Sam's lap and mumbles, "I've been thinking a lot about you."

"Me?"

"_Us_," Gabriel corrects, and he's genderless, so he doesn't exactly have a very personal concept of manhood, but he feels some part of him inch away from that word nonetheless. "Thinking about us. The sex. And…you know, wondering if there would be repeat performances."

"Just the sex?" Gabriel scowls against Sam's neck – the shrewd bastard is going to make him _say_ it.

"All of it," he murmurs. "I like…_talking_ to you. I like that you laugh at my jokes. And I like your stupid hair, and how you sing in your sleep, and I just…like a lot of things about you."

"Oh, _really_," Sam says, but Gabriel can see his reflection in the window just above the table – Sam can't exactly hide the smile that he's valiantly trying to suppress.

"I have to warn you, though, I'm not very good at…long-term projects. I'll probably experience some sort of crisis later. Maybe cruise around in a red Corvette for a while."

"Mhm."

"And I'll annoy you. I'll definitely make you angry enough that you want to strangle me."

"You do that already," Sam points out. "And it's not like you're going to up and change sides, right? You'd be stuck with us either way."

"I'm going to make your brother absolutely miserable," Gabriel warns. "You don't even _know_ the kind of shit I'm going to pull on him. Candy in his clothes is _nothing_. If you decide to stick with me, if this is what you want, then the first thing I'm going to do is put a snake in his pillowcase. A _big_ snake."

"A poisonous one?"

Gabriel thinks on it. That might be overdoing it, and he doesn't want to _hurt_ Dean, just…yeah, make him absolutely miserable.

"Just a big one."

The corners of Sam's eyes crinkle as his smile goes from 'barely visible' to 'ninety-watt bulb.'

"Gabriel," he says softly. "Do you want to know what I'm reading about?"

"Not porn?" Gabriel guesses, because he's pretty sure Sam said before that it's their fictional counterparts talking about their feelings, or some shit like that. Wait. _Similarities_, that was it. Sam turns his laptop, angling the screen so that Gabriel can better see.

"It's something called 'wingfic,'" he explains, and something in Gabriel's chest (perhaps his heart, or maybe his stomach has decided to migrate north for the summer) lurches, but in such a way that it isn't entirely unpleasant. It's odd, to say the least.

"Um," Gabriel says, rather intelligently, he thinks.

"I know it's all apocrypha," Sam continues, "but it says that showing your wings to someone is…intimate. And, I mean, Castiel showed Dean _his_."

_Father help me,_ Gabriel thinks, and wonders if Sam is planning a fucking spring wedding or an autumn one – but, when he kisses the curve of Sam's neck, he finds that the prospect of, maybe, just being with _one_ person (just for a while, mind!) isn't so daunting as he'd thought it might be.

~

"Alright," Gabriel says, "When I tell you to close your eyes, you _close your eyes_, got it? No peeking, no quick glances, _nothing_. I would still like you even _with_ a bloody crater for a face, but I doubt your brother would be so pleased."

"You can really do that?" Sam asks, something like awe coloring his voice. "I mean, I know seeing an angel can blind you, but…"

"Seeing an _angel_," Gabriel points out. "I'm an _arch_angel. You know how there's a big difference between a three-volt battery and a nine-volt battery? Same thing. Seeing me, _just_ me, would boil your brain inside your skull."

Sam immediately closes his eyes.

Gabriel makes him cover his face with his hands, too. Just for good measure.

"Alright," he says. "Just…give me a second. It's been a while since I've done this."

Technically speaking, Castiel never showed Dean his wings. He showed him the _shadow_ of his wings, a bare glimpse of something too large and too vast for the human mind to comprehend. But Gabriel, in the past, has needed to provide a little more proof than just a shadow (Mary was especially stubborn, and Gabriel had admired her for that), and so he's worked long and hard to figure out a way around the whole 'turning humans' faces into jelly' part of the wing equation. He _can_ manifest his wings beyond a shadow (all six-hundred of them, if he really wants to), it just…takes some concentration. He closes his eyes, focusing on the part of his Grace that's twisted and curled up, the part of him that's shoved down between the shoulder blades of his vessel like an animal that's waiting to die. He coaxes it from the relative safety of the rest of himself, shaking out the sparks of energy, the crackle of sound and the vast, unfathomable space, parts it all into the familiar shape of wings, and then clenches down on it. Like pressing dough into a mold, his wings fan out and become _solid_ emerging along his spine while he consciously parts the material of his shirt around them.

"Alright," he says, letting out a slow breath. "It's safe to look, now." It's been so long since he's had to hold this shape, but he finds that it's easier than he thought it would be – the wings are a familiar weight against his back, and it's totally worth the trouble when Sam uncovers his eyes and then just _stands_ there, staring, his mouth slightly open.

"You look like an idiot," Gabriel says fondly. "Close your mouth before you start catching flies."

Sam does so, though he doesn't seem to be aware that he's doing it. He lifts a trembling hand, fingers inching towards the thumb of Gabriel's primary wings, the massive crimson feathers ruffled to conserve heat (Sam likes to sleep with the air on, so it's always a few degrees cooler in their motel room than it is outside).

But then Sam freezes, arm partially outstretched, _almost_ touching. Like he's afraid he'll make a mistake, somehow. And, you know, Gabriel already puts up with Sam's dubious future (he doubts Lucifer will be pleased that his brother has been having sex with his chosen vessel), and he puts up with the guy's weird eating habits (the other day he ordered an _egg white omelet_), and Sam's tendency to get gassy if he so much as _looks_ at Mexican food. And then there's that whole 'drank demon blood' thing, and the 'dangerously codependent brother' bit, and Sam is never really going to run out of things for Gabriel to put up with, but _this_ isn't one of them. Gabriel hums nonchalantly, shifting so that Sam's fingers brush against the wrist of his wing.

"_Oh_," Sam breathes out. "Oh, _wow_."

"I know, I know. I'm awesome."

"You're awesome," Sam agrees absently. Gabriel takes a moment to revel in that admission.

At which point Sam decides it's a good idea to bury his hand in Gabriel's feathers.

"_Fuck_," Gabriel says, the word punched out of him on one long, startled breath. _This_ isn't something he's ever done before, and that's quite a feat, for Gabriel. He's never shown his wings to anyone in this sort of context, so no one has ever reached out to _touch_ before – and not just to touch, but to grasp, to comb their fingers through, the way Sam is doing now. His wing flexes up and out, extending so that Sam can get at the soft down and thin, sensitive skin underneath.

"I'm not a dog that you can pet," Gabriel complains, more for show than anything else – he's already straining into the bite of Sam's short, blunt fingernails, scratching itches he never even knew he had. It feels _sinfully_ good, and Gabriel makes a noise that he thinks might be more pornographic in nature than he ever intended. His wings stretch out, thumbs catching at Sam's clothes, tugging at his shirt, and all Sam does is _smile_, the smug bastard.

"How many are there?" he asks, and Gabriel forces himself to blink instead of just staring off into the middle distance like a glassy-eyed idiot. He shakes his head, disturbing the cobwebs that have apparently replaced his brain, before he answers.

"More than can actually fit on a human body," Gabriel says absently. "Six hundred."

"Six _hundred_," Sam repeats, and digs the pad of his thumb into the sensitive muscle of Gabriel's wing joint. "And right now you have four, five…_six_."

"This is nothing," Gabriel protests. "Michael has so many wings that the number _changes_ depending on how he's feeling."

"But I'm not sleeping with Michael," Sam reminds him, and then curls his fingers around the curve of Gabriel's wing, gently tugging him backwards until they fall onto Dean's bed in a flurry of feathers and long limbs.

"Fucking on your brother's bed," Gabriel says approvingly. "Kinky. I like it."

"Shut up and kiss me."

Gabriel grins, and bows his head to do so, his wings unfolding and covering them like a vast and crimson shroud. When Sam kisses him, he kisses like he's making a promise.

Yes, this is probably going to end in tears, and Gabriel is quite possibly going to regret this later – there's no guarantee that either of them will survive the next few months, let alone come out with all their important parts attached. Not to mention that Sam is sort of needy and passive-aggressively 'understanding' about the things he can't change.

But when Sam strokes his fingertips along the bright edge of Gabriel's feathers, full of awe and delight and no small amount of lust, Gabriel tells himself that, if the world ends the way Lucifer wants it to, he would prefer to die regretful and full of heartache, rather than never knowing the emotions at all.

"Stop thinking so much," Sam murmurs. "Just…be here."

So Gabriel does.


End file.
